Penguin

Differences between current version and predecessor to the previous major change of TabStops.

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Newer page: version 15 Last edited on Sunday, July 23, 2006 11:09:28 pm by AristotlePagaltzis
Older page: version 13 Last edited on Sunday, July 23, 2006 6:48:36 pm by AristotlePagaltzis Revert
@@ -5,9 +5,9 @@
 !! But vim/emacs support mode lines so you can see which tab width you use! 
  
 Except: 
 * They don't agree on the syntax, so you need two sets of modelines, one for each application. 
-* <tt>grep</tt>/<tt>patch</tt>/<tt>diff</tt>/<tt>sed</tt>/<tt>lpr</tt>/</ tt>less</tt> don't read modelines. 
+* <tt>grep</tt>/<tt>patch</tt>/<tt>diff</tt>/<tt>sed</tt>/<tt>lpr</tt>/<tt>less</tt> don't read modelines. 
  
 !! You can run things through a preprocessor to convert tabs to the correct number of spaces! 
  
 A converted diff does not apply as a proper patch anymore. A converted MakeFile bombs out due to a "missing delimiter". A converted <tt>sendmail.cf</tt> means no mail is delivered. 
@@ -60,5 +60,5 @@
 > !! The solution - tabstops that expand or shrink to fit their contents 
 
 > For as long as we continue to define each tabstop as being a multiple of N characters we will never be able to solve this problem satisfactorily. The problem is that we're using tabs and spaces to format text for aesthetic reasons rather than treating them semantically – tabs are for indenting and aligning text, spaces are for separating keywords. The solution then is to redefine how tabs are interpreted by the text editor. Rather than saying that a tab character (a "hard tab") will move the cursor until the cursor's position is a multiple of N characters, we should say that a tab character is a delimiter between table cells in a similar manner to how they're used in tab separated value (TSV) files. 
  
-Of course, the question is when (if ever) <tt>grep</tt>/<tt>patch</tt>/<tt>diff</tt>/<tt>sed</tt>/<tt>lpr</tt>/</ tt>less</tt> would be taught to follow this approach… 
+Of course, the question is when (if ever) <tt>grep</tt>/<tt>patch</tt>/<tt>diff</tt>/<tt>sed</tt>/<tt>lpr</tt>/<tt>less</tt> would be taught to follow this approach…